Smartphones, despite their name, are actually pretty dumb. They only do what you tell them to, and constantly inputting information can get tedious. However, with a few apps, you can not only make your phone smarter, but turn it into a mind-reading personal assistant that lets you know of important information as you need it: like traffic for your commute, a reminder to pick up milk as you pass the grocery store, and even automatic text messages to your friends when you're driving to meet them. Here's how to do it.

What You'll Get

The purpose of this setup is to make your phone give you information as you need it, rather than you having to constantly ask it about traffic conditions, your calendar events, and other important stuff. When you're done, your phone will be able to:

Give you a notification you when it's time to leave for your next appointment or event, based on traffic and your current location

Public transit info, including where the nearest station is, the optimal route to get to any location, and how long it will take you

Send an automatic text message to your friends or family when you're on your way to meet them, with estimates on when you'll arrive

Notify you when you arrive at a location with a to-do item attached to it, e.g., notifying you to get milk when you pass the grocery store

Let you know if an upcoming flight has any delays, gate changes, or other important info, as well as when to leave to get to the airport on time

Store your gift cards, coupon, and other vouchers so you always have them with you (and, on the iPhone, notify you when they're usable)

Give you quick access to the local hotspots, currency conversions, and language translations when you're traveling

Plus more. Here's how to set it up on both Android and iOS.

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On Android

Android users are lucky, since many of the above features are available in Google Now, one of the coolest new features of Jelly Bean. However, you can grab a few other apps to enhance the experience, too. Here's what you'll need.

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Never Be Late, Keep Track of Your Calendar, and Travel Smart with Google Now

Let's start with Google Now. Google Now uses your search history and location to determine what you're interested in, where you're going, and gives you tons of information based on those things when they really matter. It's technically only for Jelly Bean devices, but Ice Cream Sandwich users can get it too with a simple little hack. Once you have it, here's what you need to do to get the most out of it:

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On you desktop computer (or your phone, if you desire), head to Google's Search History Page and turn your search history on. Without this, Google won't be able to use your search history to give you information.

Go to Google Latitude's Location History Settings and make sure your Location History is also turned on. This will help Google Now find your place of work and other locations so it can let you know what traffic is like when you're commuting.

If you haven't already, make sure to turn on Location Services on your phone as well. You can find these in your phone's Settings > Location Services.

Once you've done that, Google Now will start popping up "Cards" based on the things you search for and what it knows about you. Here are some examples. Note that for each of these, you can tweak its settings by going to "Show Sample Cards" at the bottom of the Google Now screen.

Traffic: When you search for a location, Google Now will bring up a map with travel time and traffic information. It'll also do it automatically during your commute to and from work (if you've set those locations in Latitude). By default, it uses driving directions, but you can change it to public transit directions in the settings. You can also change the priority of the card depending on traffic: by default, it'll show up higher on the list if traffic is heavy, and lower on the list if traffic is normal.

Appointments and Other Events: Google Now will also scan your calendar for events and let you know what's coming up next. If that event has a location, it'll give you the travel time and traffic information for getting there. It'll even take that information and calculate when you should leave, notifying you at just the right time so you won't be late.

Public Transit: If you use a lot of public transportation, you can have Google Now notify you when you're near a bus or subway station, as well as give you schedules on when the next bus or train arrives.

Flights: If you search for a flight number using Google, Google Now will hang onto that info and give you a card with that flight's status, departure and arrival time, and terminal—plus driving directions to the airport.

Travel Info: If you're traveling, Google Now recognizes you're not at home and provides you with all sorts of travel tools, like a quick translation card, quick currency conversions for the country you're in, and a card that tells you what time it is back home, if there's a time change. Of course, for more translation powers, you might also want to check out Google Goggles, which can translate text from a picture you take on your phone—perfect for signs, menus, and other things you find in your travels.

Google Now does more than this, too, including weather updates, sports scores for teams you've searched for, and nearby places, but these are some of its smarter functions. To see everything it can do, tap the "Sample Cards" button at the bottom of the Google Now interface.

Get Reminders at Just the Right Time with Spoty

I pass by the grocery store every day, yet I often forget that I meant to stop in and grab milk on my way home. Spoty is a location-based reminders app that fixes this problem. You input different locations into Spoty—like the grocery store, the bank, your house, and others—and it'll send you your important notifications when you arrive at the place in question. So, it can remind you to pick up milk at the store, remind you to do laundry when you get home, or do anything else you can tie to a specific location.

Spoty is the cheapest and simplest option for this on Android. Not only does it give you reminders, but you can even set it to send a text message when you arrive at a location, so you can let someone know when you're almost there to pick them up (no need to dangerously text them while driving).

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Track Packages and Price Drops with Slice

If you buy everything online (like I do), it's hard to keep track of when everything's coming to your house, or when something drops in price after you've bought it. Slice is a simple app that does all this automatically: it scans your email inbox, grabs receipts as they come in, and offers you a simple interface for tracking all your packages. It'll even notify you of price drops, if the merchant in question honors price adjustments. If you buy anything online, Slice is invaluable to have.

Find Nearby Hotspots with Yelp and OpenTable

Google Now lets you know of nearby restaurants and hotspots, but in our opinion, it doesn't do a great job. We much prefer the old stables of location-based hotspot searches: Yelp and OpenTable. While Google gives you a seemingly random list of just a few locations, Yelp and OpenTable will provide you with a very nice list of nearby restaurants and other locations sorted by rating, price, and tons of other features. OpenTable will even show you the menu, tell you how long the wait is, and get a reservation right from the app. That way, if you're in an area you don't know and need to grab some food, you don't have to worry about too much—just open up the app, find a place nearby, and reserve your table in just a few minutes.

Store Your Gift Cards, Tickets, and More with PassWallet

Gift cards, coupons, and other passes are great to have, but it's hard to remember to bring them with you whenever you go shopping. PassWallet solves this problem, bringing support for Apple's Passbook to Android. Whenever you stumble upon a service that supports Passbook—like Fandango movie tickets, Starbucks gift cards, Target coupons, and others—PassWallet will import them, allowing you to have them with you at all times.

Unfortunately, PassWallet does not send you notifications when you enter a participating location, like Passbook does on iOS. However, since we're including Passbook in the iOS section below, we thought PassWallet was at least worth a mention.

Stay Up to Date on Travel Arrangements with TripIt

While Google Now can give you some pretty handy flight info, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention TripIt, our favorite travel organizer. TripIt scans your email inbox for incoming travel reservations, then grabs the necessary information and puts it into a simple app on your phone with everything you could possibly need to know about your flight: departure and arrival times, confirmation numbers, delays, seat numbers, and tons more. The day of your flight, you don't need to do anything but open up TripIt on your phone to track everything you need—perfect for making that vacation totally stress-free.

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On iOS

iPhone users have to do a bit more work than Android users, but the iPhone also has a few features that Android and Google Now don't. Here's what you'll need for a mind-reading personal assistant on iOS.

Never Be Late Again with GoTime

Setting aside travel time for your next appointment is a pain: you need to look at your calendar to find out where it is, look up traffic info on the net, and get yourself driving directions. GoTime does this all automatically for you. It scans your calendar for any upcoming events, then notifies you when you need to leave based on your current location and how long it will take you to get there. You can set it to use driving directions or public transit directions (as long as you're on iOS 5), so you'll never be late again. If you're jailbroken, you can couple GoTime with Waze and Navigate from Maps so you'll be able to start turn-by-turn navigation right away, too.

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Make Your Calendar Smarter with Cue

Your personal calendar is great, but you have to manually add notes, locations, contact info, and other stuff if you want to get anything out of it. Cue is a smart calendar for iOS that gives you all the info you need to know, when it matters most—without you having to input it all. If your calendar merely says "Dinner with Tom", Cue will search your email, contacts, social networks, and other services to find out who Tom is, where the dinner is being held, and automatically add all that information to your calendar for you. So, when you go to Cue and tap on "Dinner with Tom", it'll know where it is based on your email exchange with Tom from yesterday, give you links to call him, and provide driving directions right from the app. Turn on Cue's push notifications and you'll always have an up-to-date set of info right when you need it.

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Get Reminders at Just the Right Time with Checkmark

I pass by the grocery store every day, yet I often forget that I meant to stop in and grab milk on my way home. Checkmark is a location-based reminders app that fixes this problem. You input different locations into Checkmark—like the grocery store, the bank, your house, and others—and it'll send you your important notifications when you arrive at the place in question. So, it can remind you to pick up milk at the store, remind you to do laundry when you get home, or do anything else you can tie to a specific location.

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We like Checkmark because it's very easy and quick to use—all it takes is a few taps to do anything. However, if you already use the built-in Reminders app on iOS, it can do location-based notifications as well—it just takes a few more taps to work, so we don't find it as efficient.

Let Your Friends Know You're On Your Way with Twist

So you've made sure you aren't late and you have all the info you need for your next appointment, but maybe traffic hits and you're going to be a little late. Twist is a smart app that keeps track of your current location and where you're headed from your calendar, and automatically texts your friends when you've left and what your ETA is—and if it changes, it'll keep them up to date. That way you don't have your friends calling you asking you where you are when you're trying to get there as fast as you can.

Remember Your Gift Cards, Coupons, and More with Passbook

Gift cards, coupons, and other passes are great to have, but it's hard to remember to bring them with you whenever you go shopping, and even harder to remember you have them when you get to the right place. If you're on iOS 6, you can use the built-in Passbook app to help you remember. Whenever you stumble upon a service that supports Passbook—like Fandango movie tickets, Starbucks gift cards, Target coupons, and others—Passbook will automatically save your voucher, allowing you to have them with you at all times.

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Then, when you enter a business for which you have a voucher, it'll let you know. So, if you have a Starbucks gift card and you walk into a Starbucks, you'll get a friendly notification reminding you that you have some unused balance on your gift card. You don't have to remember anything.

Find Nearby Hotspots with Yelp, OpenTable, and AroundMe

You probably already have these on your phone, but hotspot-finding apps like Yelp and OpenTable are great tools to have in your mind-reading arsenal. Both provide you with a very nice list of nearby restaurants and other locations sorted by rating, price, and tons of other features. OpenTable will even show you the menu, tell you how long the wait is, and get a reservation right from the app. That way, if you're in an area you don't know and need to grab some food, you don't have to worry about too much—just open up the app, find a place nearby, and reserve your table in just a few minutes.

If you don't like either of those apps, AroundMe is also worth a mention. It has a great database of businesses, can tell you what's nearby, and gives you easy access to driving directions, phone numbers, restaurant menus, and lets you make a reservation. the only thing it doesn't really have is the big community that Yelp and OpenTable have, so you can't see which places are good (and which places are duds). That said, it's very good for finding the nearest ATM, post office, or other location like that.

Track Packages and Price Drops with Slice

If you buy everything online (like I do), it's hard to keep track of when everything's coming to your house, or when something drops in price after you've bought it. Slice is a simple app that does all this automatically: it scans your email inbox, grabs receipts as they come in, and offers you a simple interface for tracking all your packages. It'll even notify you of price drops, if the merchant in question honors price adjustments. If you buy anything online, Slice is invaluable to have.

Stay Up-to-Date on Travel Arrangements with TripIt and Just Landed

When it comes to travel, we can't recommend TripIt highly enough. TripIt scans your email inbox for incoming travel reservations, then grabs the necessary information and puts it into a simple app on your phone with everything you could possibly need to know about your flight: departure and arrival times, confirmation numbers, delays, seat numbers, and tons more. The day of your flight, you don't need to do anything but open up TripIt on your phone to track everything you need—perfect for making that vacation totally stress-free.

If you aren't traveling, but you have to pick someone up from the airport, Just Landed is an awesome app. Like GoTime, it will tell you when you need to leave based on your current location and your travel time to the airport. However, it'll also track the flight in question, letting you know whether it's early, on time, or delayed, so you'll get there right as they land.

Survive in a Foreign Country with Google Translate and Currency Converter HD

It can be hard to adjust when you're traveling overseas: you've got foreign languages to deal with, currency conversions, and a city you know nothing about. Your phone can help make things a little bit easier. Google Translate can translate just about anything for you, via text or voice. The Goggles feature of Google Search can translate anything you can take a picture of, perfect for signs, menus, and other written words. Lastly, if you need a good currency converter, Currency Converter HD is solid, providing you with a simple interface for converting to any currency you want. Armed with these few apps, you should be able to make your stay much less stressful.

Your phone can't really read your mind, but armed with the right information, it can know a lot about where you're going, what you're doing, and what you need to know at any given moment. With this system, you should be able to spend a lot less time looking things up and a lot more time getting things done, which is exactly what smartphones are for in the first place.